After spending a lazy Monday morning, simply relaxing, I stroll over to Keith’s house at 10:00 a.m. – I am excited to have been given the opportunity to assist Keith in two chocolate ceremonies, both of which will take place at a small yoga retreat center across the lake. One will be this afternoon, February 20, after which I will camp in a small tent near the cool water’s edge of Lake Atitlan. The other will be tomorrow morning.
I look forward to holding space and powerfully assisting in these ceremonies. As usual, the Universe has different plans.
A Steel-Toed Boot
Keith and I arrive at our destination at noon. I am delighted to engage in a round of huge angelic hugs with my friend – the one I have called Angela in previous writing – a beautiful young woman who has again returned to the lake to help teach this retreat.
As I nibble on fruit in the kitchen, waiting for the 2:00 p.m. ceremony to begin, I hold my hand on a very painful solar plexus – one that has been hurting me all morning. I feel as if an extremely hard and painful rock has taken up residence at the center of my abdomen, just below the ribcage.
When the ceremony gets underway, it becomes obvious that a large percentage of this group could benefit from an empath training – one that Keith quickly conducts at an unusually early stage in the ceremony. As the training progresses, my pains worsen. By the end of phase one, my solar plexus aches profusely. By the end of phase two, I feel so pain ridden and shutdown that I disconnect from the group, returning to my yoga mat about ten feet from the others.
I am unable to access any sensation of light, love, or Higher Energies. As I grasp for ways to describe the pain, it feels as if I were metaphorically kicked by a steel-toed boot – both at that nail-in-my-heart spot at the center of my heart chakra, and in the center of my solar plexus.
Miserable Desires
I feel like a recluse loser as I simply observe the remainder of the ceremony, doing so from afar. I hurt too much. The thought of trying to assist or hold space for others seems like an impossible task.
I try to send love to the pains in my body, but the emotions and pains are so strong that it takes every ounce of strength I have simply to sit where I am at – to not run away, dig a very deep hole, climb in, and scream with agony at the top of my lungs.
As the ceremony ends, I note that Keith remains behind to assist one woman who continues to process very deep emotions. I remain detached from the events, quickly locate my tent and set it up on the concrete floor of this outdoor yoga paradise – first lining the ground with layers of yoga mats, then my tent, then more yoga mats, air mattresses, and my sleeping bag. As far as I am concerned, I could crawl in that tent right now, isolate myself, and be quite happy in my misery.
A Full Stomach
When Keith finishes what he is doing, I briefly touch base, apologizing for my emotional state, expressing my deep confusion regarding what I am experiencing.
“Brenda,” Keith surprises me, “I’m getting that you have regressed into the depths of childhood pain … being taken back to feel and experience the actual childhood pain that you went through. Trust the process, allow yourself to feel it, and let the knowing unfold.”
Keith and I are both late for dinner, so there is no time to talk. A minute later, I am glumly picking through what is left of this vegetarian buffet. The salad is dripping with dressing – and I am not especially fond of salad dressing – so I end up grabbing three medium sized boiled potatoes, a stack of warm corn tortillas, and a small bowl of broccoli soup. In my current state of crazy emotional depression, the only thing with which I concern myself is that my stomach is not empty.
Present-Life Regressions
“How are you doing?” One young woman asks after dinner.
“Keith tells me I am regressing to childhood, experiencing the agonizing emotions of how I felt when I was being shut down at a very young age.” I answer politely, still not fully grasping or understanding what I am doing.
As the dining room is being rearranged for a group “Kirtan” gathering, I seriously consider running away, crawling in my tent, and checking out … but something causes me to stay. I feel utterly stupid and detached from events. As the group talks, laughs, sings, chants, and plays instruments together, I simply isolate and breathe, attempting to not burst out into agonizing tears.
An hour later, Keith leads a smaller group in a discussion about past life regressions and related topics. At one point in the discussion, Keith talks about the concept of doing a regression into present-life feelings and emotions – going back in time to see through the eyes and feel the emotions of that part of us – the same as we do when regressing into a past-life experience.
“Are you saying that there really is such a thing as a present-life regression?” I beg for more clarification, speaking for the first time in a couple of hours.
“Yes, Brenda,” Keith confirms confidently. “That is what you are doing right now … feeling your child’s emotions and pains while being in your adult body.”
“Wow,” I ponder to myself, “that puts what I am doing into a whole new perspective and understanding. I had no idea I had hurt this much as a child, but these emotional and physical pains feel very familiar.”
A Call For Love
Keith soon guides this group of around twelve people into a meditation where each journeys individually into a regression – going wherever their own subconscious mind takes them.
As I watch and listen, I do not participate – I am feeling so much nausea and pain that I almost stand up and leave – but again, something causes me to tough it out and remain right where I am … discomfort and all.
Around 9:00 p.m., as Keith continues to guide what turns into a very long session, a few things he says trigger me to go deeper into my own experience.
“If I am feeling the pain of my child at what intuitively feels like one-to-three years old,” I ask myself, “what would I be doing then, if I were actually feeling like I do right now?”
“I would be screaming my head off in pain,” I ponder the obvious answer. “It would not be a temper tantrum, but it would be even more emotional and painful. The pain would be caused and heightened by the fact that I was also inhaling the emotions of everyone around me.”
“I need to provide love for that child.” I suddenly consider a new course of action.
Shocking Emotions
As I meditate and try to imagine myself sending love to this screaming little inner child, I cannot do it. The thought triggers feelings of revulsion. To my shock, I feel deep anger at this child for screaming so much.
I feel hopeless, powerless to help that child. I am frustrated. I hate the screaming, and I do not know how to stop it. I want to help, but the little brat just keeps screaming for no reason. As I try to love, I feel only deep anger, judgment, and exasperated frustration.
“Shut the f@ck up you screaming ninny!” The insane words pop into my head. “If you want to cry, I’ll give you a reason to cry.”
“I hate that child,” I ponder in confusion. “He is a terrible crybaby … STOP CRYING!!!”
These emotions shock me. No matter how hard I try to focus, I cannot love this terrified screaming child. He does not deserve love. He is NOT loveable.
The intensity of the hatred frightens me. I realize that this anger and hatred is something I have been carrying around inside of me – literally despising myself for having been such an out-of-control and emotionally struggling little boy.
Time For Me
“Higher Energies,” I beg in meditation, “please help me in releasing this anger, hatred, and loathing.”
Gradually, as I sit quietly, repeatedly asking Higher Energies to assist me, I begin to feel the strongest portions of this angry emotional charge start to fade. Finally, at around 9:30 p.m. when Keith finishes up with the group, he walks across the room to where I have isolated myself, sits down in front of me, and speaks.
“All righty then,” Keith smiles. “Let’s work with you a little bit.”
Tears stream lightly down my cheeks. I feel so deeply grateful for Keith’s compassion. I had half expected him to be angry with me for how I have gotten so hopelessly lost in my own process, not assisting him in any way.
Soon, however, Keith realizes that it is “light’s out” for the retreat center … and that there are many people trying to sleep in a loft directly above where we are. Seconds later, Keith and I walk down to the “palapa” together – the large outdoor patio area with a circular thatched roof. I shine a light in the darkness while Keith quickly sets up his tent, perhaps ten feet from my own. Finally, when we are all settled in, we continue our little discussion in a very unique way … we talk back and forth between tents.
Cellular Memories
As I rest in my sleeping bag, I cry a lot as Keith explains to me a process that often happens when people change their diet and do a physical detoxification, telling me that as their body cleanses, that people frequently regress, one by one, back through every illness they ever had, right to the beginning.
“It is cellular memories being undone.” Keith explains to me as I whimper while listening from afar.
“Brenda, this is the same thing you are doing,” Keith guides me, “but you are processing cellular memories at an emotional and energetic level instead of a physical level. You are methodically going back and re-experiencing all of your childhood emotions as part of a very beautifully planned process.”
Keith explains that I need to do this – that I set it up this way, so that in the process of re-experiencing, releasing, and healing all of these past experiences, that I could also get the learning that I need in order to be able to eventually help others.
“It is necessary for you to go back in time to re-experience all of these pains.” Keith reassures me.
A Flow Of Memories
“I had no idea that I had hurt this much as a child.” I express my agony to Keith. “But as I feel these pains, all of my inner knowing tells me that this is real and absolutely accurate. I remember the intense crying … crying for no reason … the physical pains in my abdomen … and my mother, in her frustration, trying to help me stop crying.”
“All of my intuitions tell me that this pain was heightened by being an empath, by feeling the emotions of others around me, and believing that their emotions were my own.” I ponder out loud.
As these words flow through my mouth, I recall frequent, actual memories, of crying uncontrollably with my mother sitting beside me on my bed – begging me to stop crying. I cannot match these memories with an actual age, but I know they were very early in my life.
Methodically Moving Memories
“You are methodically and gradually being taken through all of the experiences that you need to remember and release.” Keith repeats to help me understand. “The pain you are feeling is the portion of the release that needs to pass through the conscious mind. You need to feel it in order to release it.”
“The key is to allow,” Keith guides me, “to not identify with the pains and emotions as being in the present day … to not attach to them and to instead simply allow them to flow through you … and to eventually reach a state where you can be blasé about it.”
As Keith shares this guidance, I remember how, during empath trainings Keith often tells people they might feel the pains of others, but that they will be so unattached that they will be able to say, “Ha, I ate worse than that when I was eight years old.”
“What you have been doing is methodically going through reservoirs of suppressed cellular memories,” Keith again clarifies. “They are moving out of you as you feel them. Allow the process. Don’t resist it or judge it.”
Empathically Internalized Emotions
“Brenda,” Keith then surprises me. “The emotions you felt tonight when trying to send love to your child were not your own emotions. You were experiencing the emotions and feelings of your parents … their sense of helplessness and frustration at not being able to get you to stop crying … their feeling like bad parents, not knowing how to help you … and their unexpressed anger and judgment at your screaming for no reason.”
“You picked up those emotions from them empathically,” Keith teaches me, “and you are also re-experiencing their emotions as part of your education.”
“I felt and said some of those same things to my own children when they would be crying, screaming, or throwing tantrums for no reason.” I confess to Keith. “I think I took those emotions in so deeply, believing them to be my own, internalizing my anger at children who cry without reason, that I passed the energy along as my own. I was impatient and frustrated when they cried. I didn’t know what to do and judged myself as a bad parent for feeling that way.”
Keith then confirms that I needed to experience this emotional frustration in multiple ways, first inhaling it from others as a child, then believing it to be my own (turned into self-hatred), and later playing that same role as a parent.
A Unique Session
It has been the most unique counseling session I have ever had … with Keith and I camping on a hard concrete surface, in the open air under a thatched roof, just a short stone’s throw from the calm waters of Lake Atitlan. Lightning bugs sparkled in the darkness, as Keith and I called out to each other, back and forth through the mesh windows of our respective tents.
After thanking Keith for taking the time to help me understand what is happening to me, I close my eyes and attempt to sleep. Emotionally, I am now quite relaxed, and the physical pains inside my abdomen are no longer obviously apparent. But when I touch my belly, I recoil with pain as I experience physical pains that feel like tender bruises all over my solar plexus. Even though this is all energetic pain, the physical effects continue to feel as if I am now experiencing the bruising of having been literally kicked by a steel-toed boot.
But somehow, I manage to get a little bit of sleep, even with a tender belly and uncomfortable pads on hard ground.
Allow And Detach
Tuesday morning, I isolate myself in a hammock chair with a beautiful view of Lake Atitlan. I literally feel as if I am recovering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) – continuing to feel emotionally traumatized, still being deeply contemplative and confused. I am actually feeling somewhat afraid to participate in another chocolate ceremony, one that is only hours away.
“How long does this type of childhood regression last?” I beg Keith for guidance when he stops to briefly chat with me.
“Usually, not much beyond the time it takes for you to allow and detach.” Keith reassures me.
I internalize Keith’s reassuring words, but the emotions continue to agonizingly flow through me. I am doing everything I can to simply be the observer of these emotions, to not attach to them, to not identify them as being me in the present-day. But these emotions are so overwhelming, that remaining in such an observer-state requires intense focus and concentration.
Intense Emotional Insights
Later, as I walk up near the kitchen, I see Keith standing nearby and again engage him in a short conversation. I am still struggling, as these childhood emotions rage through me with the power of river rapids.
“I’m still feeling like crying,” I express my confusion to Keith. “Is it OK to cry, or do I need to use the light?”
“Brenda,” Keith responds with compassion, “crying helps you feel the emotions so that you can release them. Of course it is OK to cry.”
What Keith says next, blows me away.
“Brenda,” Keith tears up, “I’ve been feeling your emotions all morning. It is strong enough to make ME cry.”
“You mean you can feel what I am feeling?” I ask with shock.
“Yes,” Keith responds with teary eyes, “I have been feeling your emotions very strongly.”
Wow, I had no idea Keith was so deeply sensitive to the emotions that he feels flowing in others.
Not Numb But Healed
Soon, I isolate myself on the boat dock. With notebook and pen in hand, I meditate and take notes regarding this crazy emotional journey. I am trying so hard to love that tiny child that was me … and I am feeling so much more compassion for how I now realize I had struggled as a tiny child … but I still recognize that some self-hatred and self-judgment remain inside me.
Once I finish scribbling all memories of the previous twenty-four hours, I set my notebook aside. I now want to cry, I want to release all of this pent-up emotion, but I am feeling so shut down and numb, that no more tears will flow.
“Brenda, numb is not the right word.” Keith later tells me as I share how my emotions have temporarily dried up. “Try ‘gone’ or ‘healed’ … more layers may come and go … but you are not numb … those emotions you were feeling earlier have been released.”
Journey Into Terror
Our second ceremony at the retreat center finally starts around noon. For the first half of our time together, I am fine, feeling reserved but stable. Feeling guided to help, I do a little energy work on a man who is struggling with some deep emotion-based nausea. As I do so, I feel my own heart shut down, and I myself begin to feel the nausea.
“Keith,” I ask for guidance, “I am feeling his emotion in my own body, and as I do so I feel tiny energetic shocks in my finger tips.”
Keith encourages me to continue what I am doing. I sit with this man for a while, but I finally disconnect and go sit by myself.
“I’m shutting down again,” I whisper to Keith as he briefly checks in with me. “Am I regressing again? … What am I doing?”
“Just allow and trust your process.” Keith reassures me.
As I sit, isolated and alone, I watch Keith continue to work with the others. I ponder how playing with my empath and energy abilities is increasingly causing me to panic and withdraw.
“I’m getting closer and closer to the pain of that empathic child,” I silently reflect, “and the closer I get, the more terrified I get – terrified of reconnecting with that actual pain in the present day.”
Too Much Fear
I remain silently disconnected from the group for the remainder of the ceremony. At the end, as Keith continues to engage one woman in a deep discussion, I finally feel strong enough to go over to sit with them.
“I feel your beautiful heart,” this deeply psychic woman shares with me. “But I am also connected to your deep pain.”
“Open your heart,” Keith guides this woman, “and allow Brenda to bring what she needs through you.”
As I sink into this shared process, imagining myself receiving channeled divine love through this woman, I briefly cry, feeling deeply vulnerable – but then the tears dry up and the emotions fade. I feel as if I shut the process down.
“Did what I needed come through?” I later ask Keith. “All I felt was the fear and my tears as I released some of that fear.”
“That WAS your process,” Keith reassures me. “When there is too much fear to do something, you do what you can and then try again another day. You processed some of that fear, which is exactly what you needed to do. Trust that your process is perfect. Quit trying to figure it out with your head.”
Emotional Burnout
Tuesday evening, as darkness settles in, Keith and I, along with a few other women, hire a private boat to glide us safely across the waters of Lake Atitlan, back to San Marcos. I am so exhausted, physically and emotionally, that I go to bed early and sleep late.
As I get ready for a chocolate ceremony on Wednesday, I am on the edge of emotional and inner-processing burnout. Today will be my seventh ceremony in the last eight days – with one of those being a one-on-one session.
Right before walking out to Keith’s house, I decide to pull a few more Tarot cards – all of which seem particularly appropriate for where I am at in my process. The last one that I pull, however, makes me nervous. I have once again pulled the three of swords – a card showing three swords (representing mind) stabbing a heart – a card that, to me, always indicates tough emotions ahead.
Perturbed Palliative Perceptions
I start feeling fairly centered and present in the chocolate ceremony, but do not feel connected with very much energy during the “Glow Meditation”.
When a few people begin to sink into emotions, I watch as Paul jumps to the rescue.
I want to be quite clear here in admitting that I am projecting quite strongly, that I am only describing my process, my perceptions, and my perturbed projections here. Paul is actually quite beautifully engaged in his own process – one that seems to dovetail amazingly well in driving all of my triggers in the direction of insanity.
When I observe Paul, what I perceive is a huge ego, running around the porch being the superman that saves everyone from their emotional pains – doing so beautifully in a palliative (symptom removing) way. But in my opinion, this is also shortchanging people, energetically releasing them from their emotions, so that they don’t need to actually heal the root cause. And I perceive this whole scene as frantically distracting, making it so people on one side of the porch (where Paul is working) cannot focus and pay attention to the true wisdom and healing being done on the other side through Keith’s guidance.
I watch my perceptions of Paul’s behavior with annoyed detachment. It drives me crazy, but I am aware that what is being triggered are my own inner issues – and I refrain from judging Paul himself.
Trapped Between Worlds
“What do you want to do today?” Keith eventually begins to work with me.
“I don’t know,” I respond with confusion. “I’m feeling very disconnected from everything, feeling like an alien in a place where I do not fit in, where I do not want to be, where everything in that place is driving me crazy.”
“Brenda,” Keith quickly shares, “I’m being guided to tell you that you have now regressed to that time in your childhood when you were in the process of being shut down … when much of your magic was shut down … when your magical world was no longer accessible to you … but when you did not yet fit into the world of your culture and family.”
“I felt hopeless and powerless,” I begin to explore the insights of this regression with Keith. “I was an alien in a place where I no longer wanted to be. I was powerless to do anything about it. I desperately wanted to run away and cry. I could not go back to the magic, and I did not want to go forward.”
On The Other Side
“You are being taken on a beautiful journey,” Keith takes a few minutes to guide me. “You need to allow and detach … allowing this experience to flow through you without making it real … without identifying with it as your now.”
Keith explains that if I attach to it, that I will manifest additional experiences to go through this again and again until I do let it diffuse with no more attachment, no identification, no making it real in the present day. He emphasizes that I am the adult, feeling these childhood emotions in the present, but that these are NOT my present-day emotions.
“You are literally feeling the emotions of this child.” Keith confidently reassures me. “Allow them to come up. You are being taken on a journey of undoing what was done … and your magical self lies on the other side of these experiences.”
Desperate Disempowering Assistance
I sit quietly meditating in this guidance, and begin to observe the ceremony from this new point of view. As I continue to observe what I perceive are Paul’s chaos-causing actions, I remain completely detached from judging Paul, instead being the observer of all of the emotions that are raging inside me as a result. I actually feel gratitude for how Paul is unknowingly acting in a stage play, showing me my deeper issues – issues that are agonizingly confusing and annoying to my side of this mutual script.
When I observe Paul, I repeatedly sink into a painful visual of my mother, running around my life with a metaphorical squirt bottle, squirting me with “fixing” whenever she saw the slightest thing out of place in my life. She was faithfully and desperately attempting to keep me on the straight and narrow path to God as she knew Him.
But as I observe these surging emotions of resentment toward my beautiful loving mother for trying to constantly help me, I am bombarded with the feeling that each time she corrected me, she was actually saying that “something was wrong with me” … “that she could see what was wrong” … “that my way was defective” … “and that she was going to correct it for me so that I will not stray.”
I know my mother’s intentions were pure, but I now realize, more than ever, that every time she “helped me be better”, that I actually felt increasingly disempowered by her involvement.
Confusing Childhood Chaos
Finally, I am so overwhelmed by this regression into confusing childhood chaos that I can handle no more triggering observation. Giving up in painful panic, I spread out a few cushions, pull a scarf over my shoulders, and curl up on my side – attempting to completely zone out for a while.
I literally become that detached child, alone and confused, not wanting to be here as I listen to what, in my current state, I perceive as chaos on the porch.
“I wish I could just run away.” I ponder in deep frustration. “I don’t want to be here in this new-age zoo.”
I know this is metaphorical, that these are the emotions of me as a child, not wanting to be in the culture of my family and religion, feeling detached, disconnected, judgmental, and just pretending to fit in … but I am getting LOST in this pain.
Eventually, as a friend briefly walks by and gently touches the side of my head with one hand and my thigh with the other, a few waves of tears gush out. As the tears flow, I feel a longing to be loved by a genuine love that actually understands me – not just a love that loves my mask and costume. But alas, a sense of knowing (remember I am still regressing) tells me that this love is something I cannot have.
Internalized Parental Projections
As my emotions again pass, being back in a state of detached numbness, I eventually sit up and lean back against the wall. I soon watch as Paul begins to engage in some emotional processing.
Crazy judgments suddenly surface in my heart. Almost immediately, I recognize these new judgments as being self-judgments that I internalized from my parents during my own shutting down.
“No, Keith, don’t help him,” these past voices rage in my head. “He is a troublemaker. He is faking it. He doesn’t deserve your assistance.”
I am shocked by the anger, resentment, and frustration that I suddenly feel toward Paul. Intuitively, I recognize that I am feeling all of the emotions that I can only imagine my parents must have felt toward me. I was also a magical little boy, who could simply not fit into the system that was being thrust upon me.
This Movie Sucks
As I struggle to maintain observer status, to not get lost in this new wave of childhood emotion, I remember something Keith had shared with me earlier.
“Brenda, see this all as a movie,” Keith had guided me. “Don’t get lost in the movie. The movie is designed to suck you into the emotions … but remember that it is a movie … you need to feel the emotions, while as best you can not buying into or identifying with them as your now.”
I mostly succeed in detaching from the projected movie around me … but not getting sucked into my childhood emotions and projections remains quite difficult.
I am shocked, and my heart warms, when at one point in his process, while Keith is on the other side of the porch, Paul actually asks for my advice on how to do something. This gesture helps me to somewhat soften and relax.
Chaos, Disconnection, And Confusion
As the ceremony concludes, I remain behind to chat with Keith. I am deeply consumed by my triggers and projections, desperately attempting to separate projection from reality.
In the process of sharing frustrations with Keith regarding how I perceived the ceremony today – of how I am projecting an environment in which I literally do not want to participate – I step over the limit with my projected complaints.
“Brenda,” Keith firmly scolds me, “you, in your space of confusion and judgment can turn a beautiful situation into one that was only chaos, disconnection, and confusion.”
Keith then reminds me that some beautiful and powerful work took place today, and that both he and Paul received many beautiful hugs and expressions of gratitude for the amazing ceremony.
“You are being taken on a journey,” Keith lovingly reminds me. “It is a journey that was set up by your Higher Self – a journey that is forcing you to let go of more of your need for rational mind.”
Begging For More
“I am so confused.” I share with Keith. “I spent my whole life desperately needing recipes for everything I would do. Can’t you give me some type of guidance as to how I can proceed?”
Keith tells me “no”, that he cannot give me guidance, that it cannot be done with the mind.
“Can’t you give me metaphorical guidance of how to address this without the mind?” I stubbornly refuse to accept no for an answer. “I am lost in my confusion and need for help.”
“No, I can’t,” Keith lovingly refuses to enable my childhood behavior, “You just need to allow this process to unfold.”
“But I’m terrified of getting lost in it.” I beg for something to hang onto. “I am barely not being lost in it now. I do not want to do this kicking and screaming … but it seems that this is what I am doing. I need to know how to do it an easier way.”
Several times, Keith has previously told me that I am regressing – that I simply need to allow, remain unattached, and not identify with the emotions as they flow and release through me – but in this painful confusion I cannot seem to see this beautiful advice as being enough.
I am really pathetically lost right now, projecting my God/separation drama all over Keith, refusing to take responsibility, refusing to remember and understand all of the beautiful guidance that has already been given me. I am in a very painful process, and it appears I need to learn this lesson the hard way.
Helpless Anger
Seconds later, Paul returns to the porch, and I believe there is no point in continuing my discussion with him there. I begin to say goodnight to Keith as I walk toward him to give him a hug.
“Hold on for a minute while I do this on my computer.” Keith asks me to wait.
“Brenda, this is your own creation,” Keith lovingly reminds me as we resume our discussion. “Everyone’s process is unique and different, and your Higher Self set this up for you to face one of your most core issues. It cannot be done with the mind and I cannot tell you how to get the answers. Your Higher Self set it up, and you have to find the answers yourself.
“F@ck my Higher Self,” I raise both middle fingers into the air with helpless, frustrated anger. “I feel so lost and alone. I just want to go crawl into a hole and pout … to be angry … and to throw a pity-party tantrum.”
“Brenda,” Keith reminds me, “these are not your emotions. These are the emotions of that child.”
Helplessly Lost
“Yeah,” I smile in frustration. “I realize that. That is actually what I was remembering and thinking about when I said that. That little child was angry at God, angry at Higher Self, and angry at anyone representing any type of Higher Energies. He was deeply angry that he was no longer getting the help he desperately needed.”
“Brenda,” Keith guides me, “you have been lost and alone your whole life. What is happening now is your own unique process to help you get out of being lost and alone. I cannot tell you what to do because I do not know what you need to do. It is YOUR process. You have to find your own way through it.”
“I am feeling so pissed.” I express to Keith. “I want help. I know I am deep in my God drama, angry at a God that would abandon a child to such a state of helpless confusion, of being lost and alone, not providing any answers on how to proceed. I know I am being taken back there to that state of anger at God … to the hopelessness of not knowing how to survive … of being turned into a people pleaser that could not think for myself … a people pleaser that could only win praise and acceptance by obeying rules.”
“I remembered in meditation this morning,” I share new understanding with Keith, “that I was so pathetically helpless and lacking in confidence as a child, that when asked to prepare a short talk for church, or to do any type of book report or paper for school, that I would throw a fit of confusion, demanding that my mother help me. I knew that I could not do it right on my own. I was terrified of what people would think of me if I did it wrong.”
“I had no creativity left in me,” I continue, “I thought I was stupid, that my ideas would be judged, that I wouldn’t fit in … WOW … I was terrified of the opinions of others, needing someone I trusted to do things for me.”
An Abandoned Alien
Finally, when I sense that my conversation with Keith is over, I turn around and walk away. I do not say goodnight. I do not give Keith or Paul a hug. I just walk home.
I am so lost in this childhood helplessness and anger, that even though I know I am projecting and simply regressing into past emotion, I cannot separate from it.
I feel pissed … I feel alone … I feel confused … and I feel deeply angry at a God that will not give me help that I can understand (projected onto Keith).
I want answers … and right now, the rational mind is all I know and trust … but everyone tells me that the mind is not the tool.
Interestingly enough, I realize that this is the exact opposite of what happened to me as a child. At the time of my shutdown and programming, I was connected to Higher Energies and the world of right-brained intuition – and I could not understand the crazy logic that was repeatedly used to invalidate what I knew. Through normal, loving, religious, and cultural conditioning, I was robbed of that divine connection and left as an alien in a world in which I did not know how to function.
Now, I remain somewhat disconnected from the Higher Energies, and it feels as if my Higher Self is robbing me of the use of my mind. I literally feel like an alien that no longer fits in either world. My old world is toast … and my new world remains just out of reach … and I am judging my self-created reality with a self-deprecating fury.
A Common Thread
As I flounder around my apartment, I am all worked up and emotionally pouting, continuing to feel indignant anger at God for not helping me in my darkest hour. I feel deeply alone and not trusting the flow … even though I continue to recognize that I am right in the middle of it. I feel as if I am being drug by the flow, kicking and screaming, because I do not know how to do this any other way.
As I browse my emails before bed, I find a quote from the book “Oneness” channeled by Rasha. The quote speaks to me. Following are those beautiful words:
“Time, as you know it to be, is moving forward at an unprecedented pace. Events appear to be crammed into an improbably short space, and at times seem to be happening simultaneously which, in fact, they are. It is crucial, as your rendezvous with Oneness draws you ever nearer, that you come to completion with the life themes that tether you to this reality. It is crucial that you attain a state of detachment from the energy charges that have magnetized you, habitually, throughout this lifetime. It is crucial that you recognize the common thread in the web of dramas that you have woven – that continue to ensnare you. And it is crucial that you allow yourself the grace of your own humanness in responding to these recurring situations – and love yourself for it.”
I love this quote. As I sit back to ponder the words, I also notice the Tarot cards that I pulled this morning. They are so perfect for where I am at – using spiritual fighting to try to regain my magic, using my rational-mind to massage emotions, resulting in a broken heart that is indeed being stabbed by swords from the mind.
“I need to back off a little,” I ponder the Oneness quote. “I am going to allow myself a little grace of humanness, loving myself, allowing, and surrendering to the flow. I am going to allow these childhood emotions to flow through me, to allow the charges to dissipate, and to not identify with them in the present. This childhood emotion is indeed a very common thread throughout my life’s biggest struggles.”
Painful Preparations
My web of dramas stem from my childhood helplessness in the creative side … demanding recipes and blue ribbons … feeling utter panic and confusion if I am expected to be creative without an external being holding my hand or doing it for me.
“God and divine love are inside of me,” I ponder, “but I cannot trust this knowledge because it was slammed, shammed, and psychically severed from me.
Near the end of my conversation with Keith this evening, while standing in his kitchen, he had congratulated me for no longer manifesting these patterns and inner issues as trauma and drama in the outside world … pointing out that I am instead manifesting it on the porch as a stage play with which I am mostly not identifying.
“That is still quite painful,” Keith had pointed out to me, “but far less painful than if you were playing it out in actual relationships with loved ones, etc…”
“This is preparing you to learn how to allow emotions to run through you without attachment and identification,” Keith had lovingly shared profound wisdom with me. “When you master doing this with your own present-life emotions, you will then be ready to work with past-life and parallel-dimension emotions – doing so in a way that you won’t identify with them and freak out by getting lost in them.”
In fact, several times today, Keith had told me I was actually doing quite well. In response, I had wanted to flip him off because I felt like such a loser for feeling what I was feeling.
A River Runs Through Me
As I struggle to fall asleep on Wednesday evening, my emotions remain extremely agitated. I am trying to allow my child’s emotions to run through me, but they continue to overwhelm me with confusion, anger, and doubt.
I struggle to not identify with these childhood emotions, to remember that they are not my reality today … but are instead the excruciating reality that I experienced as a child during my shutdown process.
I continue to be in the middle of this agonizing pain, wondering if I really trust anything that I thought I believed. It shocks me how overwhelmingly painful these emotions are … and if this is how much I am going to feel it, I cannot fathom trying to allow the emotions from parallel or past selves from other dimensions to run through me.
Then my mind wanders back to Keith’s tear-filled eyes on Tuesday morning as he told me that my emotions were so strong that he was having a hard time not crying.
“And if I further open my magic, am I going to feel the emotions of others that strongly too?” I ponder with fright. “I am not really sure if I like this very much.”
… to be continued …
Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Larsen, All Rights Reserved